Will you require illegal aliens who have applications denied under any legalization program to be placed in immigration proceedings to be removed from the United States once they are denied? Currently, many who apply for immigration benefits now through DHS-USCIS, such as spouse petitions, are never placed in removal proceedings — even after their applications are denied, which is in part based on changes implemented in the last couple of years.

Are you going to support the bill if it includes provisions that weaken parts of existing immigration law that promote immigration enforcement and limit fraud, such as asylum fraud?

Are you going to require in the bill real fraud protections to limit the massive fraud from the 1987 amnesty? What will you require that this bill do to prevent fraud that the last amnesty bill did not do? For example, are you going to support the bill if it prohibits DHS from sharing information aliens put on their legalization applications with DHS immigration enforcement officers, like the last amnesty did?

The argument is that 11 million aliens could benefit from the legalization program. Those numbers are probably conservative. The real number of illegal aliens currently in the United States is probably higher. Are you going to allow those who benefit from legalization to sponsor people to come here from their home country, such as parents or siblings?

If so, is the program really limited to 11 million? Would you cap those who can participate in legalization at some specific number — such as 11 million total including dependents?

What provisions will any bill you support have to prevent the massive and extremely costly litigation that resulted from the 1987 amnesty? Do you support federal court jurisdiction over decisions of whether to permit an alien to benefit from the legalization program. Do you support that?

The Schumer-McCain framework does not say when someone had to first arrive in the United States to qualify for legalization. Does it mean they can be here up until the day of enactment to qualify?

It would seem someone should have to be in the United States for years to qualify, such as five or ten years. The less time they have to be here the more the bill promotes more illegal immigration and the easier it is to create fraudulent documents for an immigrant to say he was here when the program started. Also, the less time someone is here, the less sympathetic their situation is and the more realistic it is to expect them to return to their home country.

The Framework talks about requiring illegal immigrants to “wait in line.” But what about immigrants who already waited in line and are now in the United States legally on a temporary visa (here legally but not on a “path to citizenship”). Is it fair to exclude them from the legalization program? If they cannot apply, and the Framework does not say that they can, why are those who came to the United States in a legal manner being treated worse than those who came illegally?

And finally, you have said the Senate committee and floor process must be followed on the legislation to allow amendments from all sides. Will you support a bill if the Judiciary Committee ranking member or the Senate minority leader says that Democrats did not permit Republicans to propose a reasonable number of amendments to the legislation?

Any Republican who will gamble the future of the country on the goodwill of the left and racial interest groups better answer a few questions first. If they don’t, perhaps giving the treasured gift of citizenship to those who have broken immigration laws really isn’t such a great idea.

44 Comments, 31 Threads

1.
William

It’s a total Obama fraud and the stupid-f#$k Republicans are just laying down to get ‘done’ again so the media will like them. Now the Dem’s can register another 11M voters. We expect the Dems to sell out the country but g-d d@#m those cowardly, panty-waisted Republicans to He11!!

It5 ia clear you have no idea what Rubio’s plan is about. He clear states that the border needs to be closed first before any other action on illegals can be taken. Second illegals must earn their citizenship and it will be a decade or more before they get citizenship because they must get at the end of then line and not gain citizenship before anyone trying it legally. He also doesn’t allow illegals to qualify for benefits while as a guest worker in this country.

We will not be able to deport 11 million people living here today. The question is do we go with Obama’s open amnesty plan or a plan like Rubio’s that has a measured way for illegals to gain citizenship.

I think most of us realize that no matter what they say, this is just an amnesty bill and the requirements for everything else that is supposed to be prerequisites will quickly be forgotten. Any administration that is capable of announcing that it will not enforce the immigration laws on the books so as to approximate the “Dream Act ” which was not enacted by Congress is capable of ignoring anything else it chooses.

Why do millions of illegal aliens need to be made legal? Make it very difficult for illegal aliens to receive a paycheck and fewer people will want to live here illegally. Border crossings work both ways.

I’d be interested in a law that allows and encourages local governments to enforce the immigration laws that the federal government fails to enforce. Local taxpayers, sick and tired of the public health, school, car insurance, and law enforcement costs of illegal immigration, should have more ability to make sure laws are vigorously enforced to drive illegal aliens out of their community.

The one compromise I’d welcome would be legal status for illegals brought to the US as young children in exchange for changing the rules for legal immigration to put much stricter conditions on family reunification preferences.

Wouldn’t it be nice. But don’t hold your breath. The greatest of all political hat tricks is to devise a situation wherein you reap the benefits while somebody else pays the bill. Washington has been sending the bill for all sorts of initiatives to the states for years and there doesn’t seem to be much anybody can do about it.

First, will you support a bill if it allows an alien convicted of a felony criminal offense or multiple misdemeanors to benefit from the legalization program? Currently, any alien who commits one felony or two misdemeanors cannot participate in immigration benefit programs such as Temporary Protected Status. Any legalization program should not be more generous.

Are you going to support a bill if it allows aliens to participate in the legalization program who have been through legal proceedings and already ordered removed from the United States, but who have ignored the removal order? We call those people fugitives. Will you support them being included in amnesty?

Very good questions. I wouldn’t make a snap judgement though regarding Rubio’s willingness to address them.

One of the biggies out there I’d like to see discussed is will government social agencies — including school districts — be part of the immigration enforcement process as is being demanded of private business?

Just seems to me that if the feds can’t even keep track of overstayed visas, there is no reason to think that following and processing 11 million current illegals is remotely possible. Securing the border must take place before new rules are written.

Why doesn’t the US just take over Mexico? Their Gov is a failure. Their education is as bad as CA’s? They have resources, cheap labor. Just take it over. I’d rather overtake them before they overtake us. We’d be doing them and us a favor.

O.K., sure. Give California back to Mexico. It was theirs, they can have it back.

But Detroit was never a part of Mexico. It was originally founded by the French. Give Detroit back to the French. Serves them right!

As for Chicago, the only thing I can think of is to give it back to the natives. I know there used to be a tribe known as the Illinois, maybe we could palm it off on them. Of course I don’t know if the Illinois are still here or if they were wiped out. If they don’t exist anymore perhaps we should allow Chicago to sink into it’s own mire. Oh wait, I think it’s already happened.

The only criteria that should be used to grant legal status is would it benefit the country to let them stay. We should not be making exceptions based on sentimentalism. We don’t do that with any other laws. If someone came here illegally, that is usually only the beginning of their illegal acts. Some sort of ID or document fraud occurs after that.

I say they should never be given legal status. Cut off their benefits, remove their kids from our schools, deny them housing and use eVerify to deny them jobs. Let them know they are not wanted here like most countries do. Illegal is illegal, the end. We have been bullied into believing that enforcing immigration laws is cruel. That is nonsense.

There are 100′s of millions of needier people than Mexicans and Central Americans. If we are going to use a humanitarian test then we should be loading ships full of African and Asian refugees and bring them to America. They would probably work even cheaper. The only reason we are talking about this is we happen to have a failed nation on our southern border. That coincidence should not be a factor in our policy.

Just as Obamacare was constructed in secret by a cabal of staffers and “consultants” outside of Congress, so also this monster has already been substantively written. Any line items Rubio thinks he can win will be overwhelmed by the sheer massiveness of the overall bill. To say nothing of having his pet line-items fall on the cutting room floor. And recall Senator Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback”.

Rubio’s likely a bright enough guy and he’s now in the Major Leagues. The Democrats are going to Rope-a-Dope him six ways from Sunday. Having McCain and Graham as “allies” and Shumer and Durbin opposing him pretty much makes it as bi-partisan as Obamacare too.

When I look at Marco Rubio, now all I see is the face of John McCain staring back at me and I can almost hear, “My friends, my friends …” coming from his mendacious mouth. It has become very clear that Rubio is The Man Who Never Was. Teenage girls get over your crush on him. He’s just a self-centered actor with a no longer very convincing act. Perhaps in the next Batman movie, as the series gets more worn out, he can play a composite of the Joker and Two-Face.

Agreed. Up until recently, I had thought that Rubio was the rising conservative “star” of the Republican party. After hearing Rubio on Rush the other day, I realized he was just another GOP politician masquerading as a conservative. Give me someone like Ted Cruz who has the guts to stand up for principle. As Cruz said, “To allow those who came here illegally to be placed on such a path is both inconsistent with rule of law and profoundly unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who waited years, if not decades, to come to America legally.”

There will be no actual compromise here. Any kind of bill giving “paths to citizenship” is amnesty, plain and simple. Even if the border was to be sealed before the illegals got citizenship, what makes you think it would remain sealed after they got it? The citizenship will be forever, the sealed borders can vanish anytime, and so can and will any measures which are put in place to stop illegal immigration.

The Feds don’t do comprehensive anything well, this will be a disaster. Does anyone in the GOP know what they are dealing with, POTUS picks and choses the laws he wants to enforce and those he doesn’t like, he rewrites via Executive Order. Saul Alinsky and Marx must be so proud of their A student.

The Bush family has way too much influence with the GOP, the party is self-destructing.

Not all Hispanics are Mexican, not all Hispanics support La Raza, we are not all Leftist and we want to seal the border. Many of us believe in the rule of law.

Anyone really believe the number of illegals (I refuse to use the term undocumented and have noticed that is the term Rubio is now using) is 11M? Will the list be matched up to voter rolls? and if anyone is illegally registered to vote or even worse, cast a ballot in any election, will they be prosecuted?

How does someone prove they have learned English? Will sanctuary cities still be allowed to exist and ignore Federal Immigration laws?

Oh, and someone ought to remind our elected officials, we are broke, we are suffering from chronic high unemployment, the dollar is collapsing, the Fed printing press is smoking, the debt is exploding, GDP is now contracting…now this is what the Leftists want but the GOP, are you in on the game?

No, but enough Latinos reliably vote Democrat, and those coming directly from Latin America tend to favor centralized solutions and lots of government support. This plus the many more who will join the electorate after this will lock in the “tax and redistribute” model for good.

If illegal immigrants suddenly turned into the hard-working Catholic conservative voters that the GOP pretends they will, I’d be more in favor of it.

The entire premise of “immigration reform” is dishonest since, after all, the “illegal aliens” that are at the heart of the controversy are mostly brown people that cross our southern borders from Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

The single most insurmountable issue with immigration reform is the fact that native Mexicans are pretty much exempt from any legislation restricting their presence in the U.S. thanks to the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Our politicians may run on a platform of sealing the southern border only to get schooled once in office that by treaty, the border with Mexico must remain open and Mexican Nationals are free to cross unmolested. The best that can be hoped for is strictly reducing the numbers of immigrants not covered by the treaty.

trusting the pubs is a fools’s errand. we are in all of this mess because of their inability to do the job they were sent there to do.

1. fixing what was wrong w/ healthcare didn’t require turning the whole country in a socialist state. a few law changes about crossing state lines along with some other minor changes could have repaired what was wrong w/ h.c., at any time. it has been a problem for decades. what, didn’t have enough lawyers to figure it out?

these are just a couple of examples of what we send them up there to handle, and we are getting zip for the billion$/trillion$ these prima donnas are costing us. lawyers will always go the long route to a solution, if at all. the more they argue and stall, the more $$$ they make for themselves. also, exempting themselves from h.c. and any other laws goes against everything this country was supposed to be about. special privileges in buying/selling stocks and such. yeah, real honorable stuff there.

so now we must count on a ‘murder’ of lawyers (congress) to try to salvage what is left of our country? yeah, trusting conservative lawyers worked so well in the u.s.s.c. on health care, eh.

My prediction:
1. Amnesty and citizenship will be provided to all illegals
2. the border will remain a sieve
3. 10 million more illegals will cross into the USA within 10 years or less because of item (1)

As a result of the above, and based on the lessons of history the USA will disintegrate, come apart as a nation within 50 years.

Disparate ethnic groups that do not share a common value system simply cannot live together and sooner or later they come into conflict or just decide to go their own ways.

Toss into this mix the totally different world views of the coastal USA (liberal progressive/socialist/communist) vs. the interior, more conservative parts of the USA and you have a powder keg.

Also, no matter what the Republicans do re: illegal immigration, Hispanics will ALWAYS vote democrat, just as the blacks and jewish folks always do.

This reminds me of a Red Cross program my mother and I volunteered for when I was a teenager. It was called the “safe ride” program. Basically the organizers viewed it as a way to make sure the “good” kids had a safe ride home if they needed one – specifically if they found themselves at a party where their ride was drinking or if they themselves had been drinking. It was a nice idea. It failed.

Why? Because reality is self correcting. Those who visualized this were in denial that when you are providing a ride for teenagers who have been drinking, you will end up with a car full of drunken teenagers.

When a drunk teen guy who is 6ft plus and outweighs you by a bit and his equally large buddies loom over you and ask what you would do if they tried to kidnap you and steal the car, it can be disconcerting. (But we are common sense people and simply laughed as we pointed out that they wouldn’t get far in a big bright red station wagon with the Red Cross logo on the side when we didn’t make our 15 minute check in call.)

The “Utopian” volunteers found very quickly that they felt threatened by some of these passengers and so the area to which we were allowed to give “safe rides” to was steadily decreased until the program collapsed.

This view that all illegals are simply “good” people trying to get a better life for their families is the same sort of Utopian nonsense. Loving parents do not bring their families into a situation where they are nothing but fodder for gangs and drug runners and other criminals.
People who are willing to break the law cannot be expected to uphold it and we degrade the character of our nation and our citizenry by subscribing to such a skewed ideaology.

Will any congressional report note that Obama’s executive orders boldly asserting his refusal to enforce immigration law do not make an unlawfully present alien lawfully present? Can they even articulate this simple truth in public?

For rhetorical purposes I still like my http://56states.us/ solution. Bring liberty to even more land, by way of a petition for statehood south of the current border. At least then we would have a mutual right to travel there just as we do to any current state today. It would certainly change the dynamics of the debate.

Here’s a puzzle: Could acceptance of such a petition be called racist?

Those states are too narc’ed up. You’d be better off with the more midwesternish interior states like Puebla, Guanajuato. I think Texas could survive a bums rush merge of Coahuila, NL, and Tamaulipas, though. The Zetas are the current iteration of the northeast’s urge to split from Mexico City.

Before the election, I listened to a very creepy gathering of NALEO bragging about how they had amnesty in the bag. They had Rubio, they had Obama, and even if Romney was elected, complete amnesty was coming soon.

There were a lot of elected officials in that room. They were laughing.

Rubio’s ties to NALEO need to be investigated. Here in Florida, we’ve known about this for a long time. Disappointment in him has been strong for parts of the Tea Party for some time now. I never agreed with supporting him, given his record in the FL House and his willingness to take a no-show job, but there was so much enthusiasm for someone of his ethnicity on the Right that many people swooned at his feet.

His stature has since been enhanced by mindless and quite embarrassing praise (clean, articulate minority type praise) from National Review, RedState, and other conservative publications. They’re finally changing their tune, but it’s pretty disturbing that they were so desirous of their own pet Obama type.

Here’s the lesson to be learned: don’t pander racially. Never pander racially. Don’t do what you’re constantly criticizing in others. Rubio has been elevated far beyond where he ought to be, given his accomplishments and some troubling ethics issues. This hasn’t been good for us, and it’s very much worth saying that it hasn’t been good for him, either.

Here’s what he said in ’09, after doing the opposite as FL House leader, where he sat on a much-wanted reform bill and refused to comment (like Obama in the Illinois House):

“No. Never have been. I am strongly against amnesty. The most important thing we need to do is enforce our existing laws. We have existing immigration laws that are not being adequately enforced. Nothing will make it harder to enforce the existing laws, if you reward people who broke them.
It demoralizes people who are going through the legal process, its a very clear signal of why go through the legal process, if you can accomplish the same thing if you go through the illegal process. And number two, if demoralizes the people enforcing the laws. I am not, and I will never support any effort to grant blanket legalization/amnesty to folks who have entered, stayed in this country illegally.-Marco Rubio, March 2009″

Thank you for saying this! It should be obvious, but it certainly isn’t obvious within the Beltway and the offices of the opinion magazines. After years of pandering by the GOP, which has gotten us nowhwere, we still get the same stupid cries for “outreach” and “diversity” from people who are supposedly on our side.

Here is a question for Rubio any any other member of congress: Do you really think that any reasonable American citizen actually believes that the federal government will enforce this new “comprehensive solution?”

I retired from the old INS after having spent 32 years in the Border Patrol and INS Investigations. The border situation was just beginning to go critical when I entered on duty in 1968 in El Paso. I have watched with interest and dismay as things have decayed into chaos.

One of the things we were required to study at the Academy was immigration law (a whole darn bunch of it!), and the link above goes to a lawyer’s explanation of one provision of the law, called “Registry.” The material at the link is accurate but lacks some pertinent information that bears on amnesty. What is left out brings up a big question that I’ll ask in closing. Let me explain; I will presume that you have read what’s at the link.

The current date to qualify for Registry is 1972, as the article says. What it does NOT say is that Registry first came into law back in about 1929, and the Registry date set then was 1924. Over the following decades the Registry date was updated several times. The current 1972 date was set in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, the same legislation that gave us the 1986 amnesty. new Registry date.

Something else not mentioned there is this: when a person qualifies for Permanent Residence under the Registry, the date of his commencement of Permanent Residence is set as of the new Registry date. There is strong effect of that which requires a bit more explanation.

To apply for U.S. citizenship a person must (among other things) have been a Permanent Resident for five years. Do you see where that’s going? If Congress created a new Registry date (which they can do very quickly since it requires no new statute) as of January 1, 2008 then anyone who could prove (by truth or fraud) that he was here before that date would be immediately eligible to apply for Permanent Residence concurrent with an application for naturalization.

One must ask, then, why all the sound and fury over an amnesty when the same effect could be had by simply updating the Registry date? What nefarious purpose is being served by distracting everyone from a process that would gain what they want, but do it through relatively easy adjustment of existing statute that has been used before?

I don’t like the idea of rewarding lawbreakers by giving them what they’ve stolen but at least it would be under existing law and precedent if we did it through Registry. I could live with that far more easily than with special legislation that could include any number of unidentified tricks.

To those you are working for a bill to introduce, be very, very careful. The Republican brand will not be assisted by seeing it’s most “compassionate” (towards illegal immigrants) politicians once again get duped by insincere Democrats.

Mr. Adams, I hope you call Rubio and others to discuss the points you have raised in your piece. I came across an article today and immediately thought, this illegal would likely have been welcomed as a Dreamer had his not injured another driver in a car accident. He has been deported multiple times yet still comes back to the US. Here’s an excerpt of the article,

“RALEIGH — Alejandro Ramirez-Castaneda has been deported from the United States three times since 2008. But he managed to make it back to Raleigh, where police say he was driving drunk when he got into an accident this month that severely injured the other driver.

It’s the fifth time Ramirez-Castaneda, 25, has been charged with a crime in Wake County, dating back to 2007. Once the case has worked its way through the legal system and he serves his sentence, if any, Ramirez-Castaneda will be sent back to Mexico again, immigration officials say.

Despite his previous arrests, Ramirez-Castaneda has not been prosecuted for the local charges that led to his deportations, dating back to 2008. Wake County District Attorney Colin Willoughby said he did not recall his office’s involvement with Ramirez-Castaneda. But he said because he had been charged with minor or misdemeanor offenses, including DWI and assault, prosecutors probably determined it was better to “get him out of the country so he can’t do anymore harm.”

STOP IT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have you not listened to his conversation with Rush Limbaugh?!!!?!?!!!???!!???!!???????? THE HELL WITH YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First, I’m not sure there is any written draft of the law for us to reference.

Now to the questions.

@JCA: “First, will you support a bill if it allows an alien convicted of a felony criminal offense or multiple misdemeanors to benefit from the legalization program?”
—

The bi-partisan group which includes Rubio, has proposed requiring background check to any alien applying for temporary legal status. USCIS does that today for any legal resident who applies for a replacement I-551 “green card” or naturalization.

So the answer to that question is probably “yes”.

—
@JCA: “Are you going to support a bill if it allows aliens to participate in the legalization program who have been through legal proceedings and already ordered removed from the United States…”
—

It’s too early to tell because there is no written draft, to which we can refer. But I think his answer would be ‘NO’.

Including absconders in the new law would be a deal-killer for House Republicans. But this may be doable by regulation & executive order though. The grounds for a motion to re-open immigration court proceedings could probably be changed in the 8 CFR regulations. I think it’s unlikely absconders will be forgiven in the new law.
—

@JCA: “Will you require illegal aliens who have applications denied under any legalization program to be placed in immigration proceedings to be removed from the United States once they are denied? Currently, many who apply for immigration benefits now through DHS-USCIS, such as spouse petitions, are never placed in removal proceedings — even after their applications are denied, which is in part based on changes implemented in the last couple of years.”
—

Today, many applicants whose applications are denied are served with a notice to appear in immigration court proceedings at the same time they are denied – in an interview for example.

But many denials today, don’t result in a notice to appear. For example, there may be some small defect with the application. A retrogression in priority dates is one example. In September, the alien was eligible for permanent residence. But in October, the priority dates moved back to August.

Putting that alien in removal proceedings would be a stupid waste of time and money. Why? Because he or she will soon be eligible for permanent residence once again in the near future.

Another example, would be an alien who is eligible for permanent residence on more than one ground. An example of this would be an alien who has both a family sponsor as well as an employment-based sponsor. If the employer’s petition was disapproved, the alien could still obtain permanent residence by virtue of the family petition.

Still another common example, is that someone made a mistake filling out the application. It might have been mailed to the wrong office. The filing fee was not correct. The application might have had incomplete information. Or for whatever reason, it was not clearly approvable as written. In cases like this, the defect can be often corrected merely by submitting a new application to the proper office with the correct information.
—
@JCA: “Are you going to support the bill if it includes provisions that weaken parts of existing immigration law that promote immigration enforcement and limit fraud, such as asylum fraud?”
—
Without knowing exactly which provisions you are referring to, it’s hard to form an answer. But I doubt anything will get through the House that weakens enforcement and makes fraud easier. But remember, a lot of the asylum rules can be changed in the regs – via executive order.
—

I don’t think Latinos will vote for the GOP en masse if Republicans support immigration laws. But the system is broken and needs to be fixed. I think the bipartisan group’s proposal is a step in the right direction. I think it’s important to require tighter border security as well. Seal off the border, for all I care. Plugs the holes – by all means. But it’s time to fix a broken system.